


The Arc of Conflict, Saga 19: For a Few Euros More

by bzarcher, solarbird



Series: Of Gods and Monsters [118]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Anger, Deadlock Gang, Goddesses, Hostage Situations, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Italy, Justice, M/M, Madness, Mental Breakdown, Post-Talon, Rage, Recovery, Revenge, Talon Lena "Tracer" Oxton, Western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:07:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27092515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarbird/pseuds/solarbird
Summary: Katya Volskaya's government in Russia has destroyed the omnium Koschei, and held their own against the Gods of Oasis. But with Jesse McCree having upset a precarious balance, Lena, Hana, and Sombra have intervened in Russia's rising civil war, and the fragile peace between Overwatch and Oasis has been shattered.Overwatch may have disavowed Jesse McCree, but Genji Shimada would never leave his lover to the Deadlock Gang's tender mercies.Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Conflictis a continuance ofThe Arc of Ascension,The Arc of Creation, andThe Armourer and the Living Weapon. To follow the story as it appears,please subscribe to the series.
Relationships: Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe & Jesse McCree, Jesse McCree & Lena "Tracer" Oxton, Jesse McCree/Genji Shimada
Series: Of Gods and Monsters [118]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/972024
Comments: 25
Kudos: 28





	The Arc of Conflict, Saga 19: For a Few Euros More

**Author's Note:**

> Words are still on. Not going to risk a buffer count, but... well... at this point it's not unreasonable. I won't talk about dates but we have at least rough drafts of what should be eight of the next nine updates. ^_^
> 
> dirtyclaws has launched [a public fan-run _Of Gods and Monsters_ discord server](https://discord.gg/pDZMpVT) and invites everyone to come join it!

Ashe glanced over from the viewscreen to the comatose McCree and grimaced before looking back.

_A lousy two hundred thousand Euros. A lousy two hundred thousand._

Six members of her gang - six friends, or as close as she had to 'em other'n B.O.B. - dead, and... _two hundred thousand._

"We could decide all this just ain't worth the trouble," Ashe said, a killer's coldness appropriately in her voice - but she had to work to put it there.

"You could," Genji agreed, over comms. "But I think you would come to regret your decision very quickly."

 _It's almost worth goin' ahead and killing 'im_ , she thought, looking at the... person... who may or may not have been an omnic.

But with so much lost, every Euro - or every two dollars, depending on how you counted it - would have to count.

"Also," the ninja said, "it really is all I have."

"Overwatch has a lot of..." she started to say, then stopped.

" _You_ have?" she asked.

"Yes," Genji replied. "I have."

"You ain't negotiatin' for Overwatch?"

"No," he said, quietly. "I am negotiating for the life of my boyfriend. Overwatch... publicly repudiated him. They cannot be involved."

"Oh," she replied. _Shit. So here I am holdin' some guy's boyfriend hostage. No wonder he's all squirrelly._

She chewed for a moment on the inside of her cheek.

_We've still got the papers. And we're still gettin' some bids on that. I guess it'll have t'do._

"All right," she said, looking back up at the camera. "Tomorrow? Can you be here? You'll want to bring a doctor. Or at least have one waiting back home."

Even through all the metal, she could see the ninja slump with relief.

"Yes," he said. "Assuming you are in New Mexico, as we think."

"We are," she nodded. "So I guess we've got a deal, leastwise if you follow through with the cash."

"Thank you."

"Wait to thank me 'til y'get here. B.O.B., send the man the details, would ya? Let's get this done."

\-----

"All right, afore we go in, y'ought t'know we've been doin' our best by him. Even if he don't deserve it, after what he did."

The Deadlock Gang did not like explaining itself, ever. Particularly not when it had no choice. But they'd done so, to both Oasis and Russia, the former of which did not seem in any way surprised, while the latter did. That Overwatch seemed to know everything at this point didn't really surprise her.

"I doubt there is very much you could do," Genji said, his voice flat. The money hardly mattered to him, now. Morrison had slipped him what he could out of discretionary funds just to get him up to €200,000, and he was grateful for that. He just wanted to get Jesse - or whatever was left of him - out of here.

"You'd be surprised, ninja. We ain't without resources - or cash. And out here, cash is what talks. That two hundred thousand's not as much profit as you might think."

 _That surprises me_ , Genji thought. _He always said she was rich, even after being disowned. Perhaps she's less so, now._

But he quickly realised he didn't care much one way or the other.

"Even money can only talk so much," Genji replied, impatiently. "I understand. Take me to him."

Ashe opened the door and led Genji into the small windowless room dug into the cliffside, much like the rest of the clubhouse. Jesse McCree lay face up on a hospital bed, immobile, an IV in one arm, but apparently unmonitored.

 _Oh, gods_ , Genji thought, looking at what Lena Oxton had done to his lover, rushing over to his side.

 _Christ but he's fast_ , Ashe thought. _Maybe it's a good thing we didn't call him on that bluff._

"He is so much thinner! Have you not been feeding him?!" Genji demanded.

"Best we can," Ashe snapped, a little defensively. "Doc took the feeding tube out 'bout half an hour ago, gettin' him ready for ya. Pulled off all the sensors, too. He's stable, breathes fine, but won't eat on his own. Won't talk, neither. You'll need to tube him back up once you're home."

Genji felt his old rage pushing up inside him, and paused, putting himself briefly into meditation, collecting his thoughts, understanding his anger, calming it, letting it wash through and over and away from him.

"...Genj..."

The sound came from Jesse, and Ashe blinked. "Well, I'll be god damned."

"Probably," Genji snipped. "Jesse?" he asked, "Jesse, I am here."

"It's just that he ain't tried..."

"Genj..."

McCree's eyes opened wide and teared up.

"It's okay, Jesse," Genji said, taking his lover's bandaged hand. "I'm here."

"No. No. No NO no NOT AGAIN not again no nO NO NO NO"

"Jesse?!"

"LENA YOU BITCH AIN'T YOU HAD ENOUGH NOT AGAIN NOT AGAIN NOT AA, AAA, AAAAAAAAAAAAAA..." as the words dissolved to screaming.

B.O.B. stepped over quickly, pressing a hypo against McCree's neck, before even Genji could stop him, and Jesse calmed, and fell into unconsciousness.

"What was that?!" Genji demanded, whirling on B.O.B., incensed. "What did you do?!"

"Sedative," Ashe interrupted. "Nothin' dangerous. We told you he screams a lot. Tears up his throat real bad and starts screamin' up blood. Doc gave it to us in case he started up again after the tube came out, didn't he, B.O.B.?"

B.O.B. nodded, once, and held out his hand, the image of a prescription hovering over his palm. Genji had no idea whether it was valid, but it looked real enough.

"I see."

"Still, I gotta tell you - that's pretty good. That's more words than we got out of him this whole time, and we did try a while before doc put in the feedin' tube."

Genji slumped, grief over what had happened beginning to settle into his mind and body.

"I understand," he said, more tiredly than anything else. "We will... I have the payment with my flyer. Outside. I agree to the exchange."

Ashe nodded. "Your friends out there gonna help you load 'im out?"

 _No,_ he wanted to say. _I will carry him away from all of this myself,_ he wanted to say. But he knew, medically, that made no sense, and so he did not, and instead he nodded, tightly, once, in return. "Yes. We will take him home."

"Good," Ashe said, as B.O.B. went back to the door and signalled down the hallway. Two medics stepped in with a floating gurney, and with Genji's help, carefully lifted McCree out of his hospital bed.

Ashe watched as they worked the gurney through the narrow doorway, B.O.B. helping with the door.

"We were friends, once, y'know," she said. "Good friends."

"Yes," Genji replied. "He told me."

"That's long over. If'n he ever showed back up here again, I'd planned to kill him. But..."

"That does not surprise me," he interrupted. "Are we finished?"

"Yeah," Ashe said, keeping the rest to herself.

She'd wanted to say that no matter how much she hated Jesse these days, she wouldn't've done _this_ to him. But clearly the ninja did not want to hear it, and she supposed she couldn't blame him.

"Ah guess we are."

\-----

"Physically," the doctor said, "he's not so bad. The fingers are the worst of it."

Geanna Mariani, sitting between bookshelves and the desk in her office, put down her padd and considered the situation.

"He's thin mostly because of lost muscle mass. He has been... somewhere... for a while, I think. Not unfed, just..." She shrugged, and gazed out her office's window, at the rural Sardinian countryside, the winter valley landscape of low, bare trees and semi-dormant grasses always soothing, helping her think. "It is, hum. Strange. He had no muscle tone for some weeks, I think. There is... some I do not understand. But his physical condition, now, it is not so bad. Aside from that."

"And the screaming?" Genji asked, from one of the two antique overstuffed chairs making up the rest of Geanna's office suite.

"I have some thoughts. There is no brain damage, not directly. The damage is psychological, not physical."

Genji nodded. Mariani was Overwatch, or rather, ex-Overwatch. She had not answered the recall, but was willing to help here, in the familiarity of her small rural clinic, and he was grateful for that.

He was beginning to think that the "not answering" part had a pretty good idea. Maybe if none of them had, none of this would ever have happened.

Of course, that would've meant not reconnecting with Jesse, and that wouldn't have been so good, either.

"The one time he spoke, he shouted about Lena. Tracer. Lena Oxton."

"I remember her, of course."

"What could she have done to cause this?"

"I don't know," Geanna replied. "But I think it took some time, yes."

"She had him only for minutes. Or so we have been told."

"She calls herself a goddess of time," Mariani noted. "And I was in Overwatch for the Slipstream, and after. With what she could do then, who knows what she could do now?"

Genji's shoulders sagged. He had some ideas of what she could do now, and liked none of them.

"I think..." the doctor said, "...there is a sedative. Or a set of them. A kind of daylight sleep, in the right dose, with semi-awareness. Not the one still in his system, it is not psychoactive. It is fine, but not helpful."

"A different sedative."

"Yes. He needs to be more awake, but not completely awake, perhaps. Yes. And with anti-anxiety and I think anti-PTSD medications, yes. Perhaps then. He is..."

She frowned at her English.

"I think he is... partly hiding inside himself, perhaps to hide from her, and partly unable, and that is the screaming. But if he can be brought back to conscious reality slowly enough, and convinced that he is no longer under Oxton's control - that might be enough to begin work."

Genji nodded. "Can you arrange this sort of treatment?"

"I... yes. It is, um, off-book. Not standard. But it is reasonable, I have colleagues who have done this, with war trauma. I will consult with them, bring them in if I can."

 _It's a start_ , Genji thought. "Thank you, doctor."

"It is okay," Geanna said. "My people, Italians - we have a long history with gods. And with surviving them."

"Mine too."

"Ah," she smiled. "But mine are European - _Roman_ \- and so, worse. Jupiter. Minerva. Mars. A lot of war. Just like now, but with much worse sex."

Genji had to laugh a little at that.

"Now. You go. Check in with your Strike Commander, or whatever Morrison is calling himself these days, yes? Get some sleep, and let me work. He will still be here when you wake up. Perhaps we can try something as soon as tomorrow."

"Thank you, doctor. I will."

\-----

"Lena is not here, okay? She is far away. We have someone here who wants to see you, very much, but it is not Lena. Lena is not here, and won't be here."

Jesse blinked, slowly, from his bed in one of the clinic's two private in-patient rooms. He did everything slowly, at the moment, and it wasn't just the complex drug cocktail in his system at fault.

Sometimes, he noticed his lack of fingers. Mostly, he didn't. Dr. Mariani had acquired basic replacement digits for his mechanical arm, ready to install, if and when he could be brought back to rationality.

They hadn't managed that, yet. But in the last few days, he'd started talking, just a little. And they'd figured out rather quickly that it helped to tell him they knew who Lena Oxton was, and that she was not here.

"Not Lena."

"No," the doctor said. "Lena is not here, not Lena. Someone not Lena would like to see you, very much."

"This ain't real," Jesse said. He said that a lot. "This ain't real."

The little cluster of doctors had found that particular insistence confusing. Normally this kind of psychotic dissociation from reality had at least some marker clusters in the brain, but this read - to the best of their ability to tell - as non-disordered thought.

"It is real," the Libyan doctor repeated, saying it again, as he had said many times. "All of this is real. It may not seem real right now, but it is real. You are in Italy, not New Mexico. We know who Lena is, we know what Oasis is, she is not here, she cannot hurt you here. You are safe. And there is someone who is not Lena who wishes to see you, when you are ready."

Genji stood in the hallway outside, out of sight, but listening. Geanna stepped out, and closed the door.

"This is good," Geanna told Genji. "He is not screaming for ten minutes. That is real progress."

Genji nodded. Ten minutes. So little time, and yet so much more. He had watched the previous attempts, Jesse's responsiveness and coherence wavering for between 30 seconds and three minutes as they refined the drug cocktail further. 10 minutes was a breakthrough.

 _Today_ , Genji thought, _ten minutes is a miracle._

Geanna touched the display beside the door, turning on the room monitor.

"Do you remember who you are?" came from the monitor. The camera was aimed at the patient, of course.

"Jesse. McCree."

" _Very good_. You are safe, Jesse. Lena is not here."

"This ain't real."

"It is real. I know you feel like nothing is real, Jesse, but this is real."

"Lena's real," he said, shuddering.

"Lena is not here. Lena is _not_ here, Jesse. You are here, Lena is _not_ here. You are safe."

Jesse blinked, and shook his head, a little faster, and Genji gasped as his lover's eyes almost focused.

"Naw, we ain't safe, doc. None of us are."

"That's new," whispered Geanna. "A complex response. That's _very_ good."

Genji nodded, watching the monitor.

"Lena is not here, Jesse. Why aren't we safe?"

"She ain't here."

"No, Jesse. She's not here. Look around. Do you see her?"

He looked around the room, slowly, and after a moment reluctantly muttered, "...no."

"Good. Lena is not here. You are in Italy. You were extracted from New Mexico. Why aren't we safe?"

"Extracted," Jesse said. "How?"

"Lena is not here, Jesse. You are safe, and this is real. The person who exacted you is outside, Jesse. He is with Overwatch. You are safe."

"Outside the door. Not Lena. Can't be Overwatch. Who?"

"Lena is not here, this is real, you are safe. The person who extracted you is with Overwatch, Jesse."

Jesse shook his head. "Can't be Overwatch. They're all dead. Everybody. Everybody but me."

 _Everybody?_ thought Genji, listening closely, watching.

The doctor looked towards his colleague who stood by, deeper sedation ready.

"Overwatch is not dead, Jesse. You are not at a Watchpoint, you are in Italy, in a clinic. I spoke with Strike Commander Amari an hour ago." It had actually been a few hours ago, but nonetheless. "Overwatch is fine. Not dead."

"Not yet?"

"Not at all, Jesse."

McCree shook his head. "No. This ain't real."

"This is real, Jesse. Lena isn't here. You are safe. Overwatch is alive."

There was no need to tell him he was no longer part of it - not at this stage.

"Real."

"Yes."

"They're just not dead _yet_ then," Jesse said. "Lena's set it up. You're all dead. She's here."

"No, Jesse. She's not here. Lena is not here. Lena Oxton is in Oasis."

"Russia."

"Oasis."

Jesse blinked. "Oasis. Not Russia. Not Russia?"

 _Aha!_ Dr. Rajab thought. _A break in the cycle. Let's pursue it._ "Not Russia," he stressed. "Russia is at war with itself, a, ah, civil war? Yes. Civil war. A bad name, no wars are civil. But that is how you say it in English. Lena is not here, she is not in Russia, this is real, and you are safe."

"...heh. Nobody's safe. Thought I just told y'that." He squinted. "Overwatch. Alive."

"Yes, Jesse."

"...Genji... a... a..."

In the hallway, Genji and Dr. Mariani braced for screaming that did not come.

"...alive?"

"Yes," Dr. Rajab repeated. "Alive. This is real. You have been extracted from New Mexico. You are in Italy, you are safe. Genji is alive."

"Genji? GENJI?" Jesse demanded, gaze darting around the room, eyes frantic.

"What are you waiting for?" Dr. Mariani said, and Genji nodded, pushing open the door, stepping through.

"Jesse?"

"Oh christ, Genji, you... no. No. Is this real? For real real?"

"Yes," Genji said, with a nod.

"All of this is real, Jesse," repeated the doctor. "This is real, Lena is not here, Genji is real, Genji is alive."

"May I... come stand beside you, Jesse?"

"Yeah," Jesse breathed. "Yeah. I think so, I, I, I, oh no, no, NO LENA NO NO NO DON'T START FUCKIN' ME UP AGAIN DON'T MAKE ME DO IT I WON'T I WON'T..."

> _[between blinks]_
> 
> Lena dragged Jesse, gibbering, back fully into the Slipstream.
> 
> "No, no, no, no, no, not again," he said, "please, Lena, stop, don't, don't..."
> 
> "Don't what? Blow up my mum? Oh, I won't. You did that. Let's see, what now? Oh, I know, I found a really good one this time."
> 
> She shifted through realities and possible realities, dragging Jesse with her, overwhelmed with nausea and grief. He'd lost track of how many times she'd made him watch Genji die. Weeks of it. Or was it months? He could no longer tell. He just knew it was over and over and over again.
> 
> Sometimes, if he was lucky, he only had to watch, helplessly, as his lover was shot, stabbed, or literally hacked apart.
> 
> Sometimes, she'd somehow put him partly in Genji's body, so he would feel him die.
> 
> Sometimes, she'd put him inside the killer - Akande, Ashe, Hanzo, whoever - and make him feel them do it.
> 
> "This one's _really_ good, Jess. You're gonna love it. Or I guess I will."
> 
> His body wanted to vomit, revulsion hitting him in wave after wave, but this time, not from the slipstream. "No. Lena," he sobbed. "Please."
> 
> "This time?" she said, "The one who kills him this time? Can y'guess?"
> 
> "I'm sorry, oh christ I'm sorry, Lena, please, I'm beggin' ya..."
> 
> "It's _you!_ "

"Lena is _not here_ ," Genji said, beating the doctor to it, stepping up to his lover's hospital bed, taking his biological wrist, below the bandages. "I know where she is, and she is not here. You are safe."

"Ain't safe, Genj. I'm not either. None of us are. Maybe not even from me. No. Wait. Took care of that. Yeah. I think. Fingers."

"I don't understand, Jesse. Why aren't we safe?"

"I killed 'er. Moira. I got 'er, Genj. And they got all of us. Every single one. 'Cept the ones they took, I guess. Oh christ, Genji, I did it, I did it, and they all went nuts, we thought they were nuts before, but oh god, we had no idea, we had..."

"Jesse," Genji said. "You didn't. That did not happen. You tried, but you failed. Moira O'Deorain is alive. Oasis declared war on Overwatch, but... it has not meant very much difference, yet. Nepal is fine. Tibet is fine. Taipei is fine."

"No," Jesse insisted. "No. Maybe she undid it somehow. I dunno. But I did, Genj. I got her. And she killed you, and she killed you over and over, and she made me watch it every, every, every time, and sometimes, and sometimes, and sometimes, and then you're dead, and then you're dead, and, and, and... this is where... no, no, NO, NO, I WON'T, I, I, AAA, AAAAAAA..."

"No!" Genji said, taking Jesse into his arms, pulling him close and kissing him, lips to lips, shattering the scream before it could really start, and after a moment, he felt his lover calm.

"You're _alive_ ," Jesse managed, tears in his eyes, once Genji let him go. "You're _still_ alive... f'real."

"Yes," Genji said. "For real. For _real_ real."

"I'm, I'm real. This time."

"Yes, Jesse. You are real."

"How?" He shook his head. "Not important. We gotta hide, Genj. We gotta get out. Before she finds me again."

" _What happened,_ Jesse? If you tell us, we can be ready. We can fight."

"No," Jesse shook his head, insistent, and just for a moment, more focused than he'd been since handing his briefcase bomb over to Ashe back in Deadlock. "We can't. We can't fight 'em. Not if they mean it."

He shuddered again.

"Nobody can."

**Author's Note:**

> This is the forty-seventh instalment of _Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Conflict_. To follow the story, [subscribe to the series via this link](https://archiveofourown.org/series/972024), rather than to the individual works.


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